Netflix Is Considering Lower Subscription Tiers, But There's A Catch

After losing a record number of subscribers, Netflix is reassessing its subscription tiers but a potential price discount certainly won’t come without some form of sacrifice.

Needless to say, we’re in the midst of a cost of living crisis. Household bills and gas prices have soared in recent weeks and now more than ever, people are reassessing their spending. After multiple price hikes and with rumours of a crackdown on password sharing looming, Netflix is admittedly becoming a luxury and not the necessity it perhaps once was.

In case you missed it, Netflix recently unveiled a glimpse at the third season of Love Death + Robots. Take a look below.

The good news is that Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has recently opened up about the streaming giant’s plans to launch a potential lower subscription tier. The catch is that similar to US streaming platform Hulu, this lower tier would likely be an ad-supported model.

“Those who have followed Netflix have known that I'm against the complexity of advertising and I'm a big fan of the simplicity of subscriptions," Hastings commented. "But as much as I'm a fan of that, I'm a bigger fan of consumer choice and allowing consumers who would like to have a lower price and are advertising tolerant [to] get what they want, so that's something we're looking at now, we're trying to figure it out over the next year or two.”

With an ad-supported model seemingly several years away, Netflix’s subscribers could continue to fall as living costs keep rising.

Adverts might be new to Netflix, but they’re certainly not new within the wider world of streaming, as Hastings himself clarified: "It's pretty clear that it's working for Hulu. Disney's doing it. HBO did it. I don't think we have a lot of doubt that it works. All those companies have figured it out, I'm sure we'll just get in and figure it out.”

Whilst many of us have enjoyed the ad-free world of streaming up until now, we’ve also consumed countless hours worth of adverts in our lifetimes, whether that’s on TV or at the cinema. I can’t say those hours have been well spent, but if an ad-supported tier helps people save pennies, it can’t really be a bad thing.